Ett centrum för utsatta barn : En kvalitativ intervjustudie om socialsekreterares och samordnares erfarenheter samt deras förutsättningar att tillgodose barnets bästa utifrån samverkan inom Barnahus

Sammanfattning: With the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was ratified as law in 2020, the focus on children's rights and the child's best interests has increased in Sweden. Article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child states that the best interests of the child must always be taken into consideration in all decisions involving children. Barnahus (The Children’s Advocacy Centers) were established between 2005 - 2007 in Sweden, where the original idea was to create a meeting point for all involved professions consisting of social workers, police, prosecutor and child and adolescent psychiatry to work together when children have been physical and/or sexual assaulted. It appeared that collaboration in these cases were complex due to the different professional practices, mainly between the police and social service, which on one hand, is based on criminal investigation, while on the other hand, is based on a social investigation with a purpose to apply protection and support based on the child's welfare, health and development. The different practices create a tension between the professions where they compete for an interpretative priority in the collaboration process at Barnahus, which creates challenges in the professions ability to accommodate the best interests of the child. Based on the experiences of social workers and Barnahus coordinators, this study intends to investigate the possibilities and limitations that may arise in each profession, as well as the conditions for meeting the best interests of the child based on collaboration at Barnahus with the involved professions. By examining the experiences of the social worker and the coordinator, this study will offer a broader insight into the collaboration process within Barnahus. The social worker’s and the coordinator's experiences to accommodate the best interests of the child will be analyzed based on the theory of street-level bureaucracy, in order to understand how the interpretation priority is affected in a collaborative process. The results of this study showed that the police and social services lack of understanding of each other's professional practice led to social workers feeling questioned and expected to do more than their professional practice allowed. What was prominent in the majority of the social secretary's and coordinator's statements was that the criminal law perspective often was prioritized which at times were portrayed in an indirect way and at other times portrayed more clearly in order to achieve interpretive priority. However, the results indicate that social workers have found a way to relate to their own regulations by the theory of street-level bureaucracy.